Forum - View topicHow Yuki Yuna is a Hero Challenges Madoka Magica's Legacy
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Yuvelir
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Because that requires osme extra knowledge. Gen'neiTaiyou DID exist as a project long before Madoka... but it only released some concept art and a couple lines before it went dark (I don't remember how dark-themed those were even). One year after Madoka proved to be a massive success, GenneiTaiyou resurfaced out of nowhere with a new PV. I don't know if the original story was rewriten after Madoka or not, it had its own slew of production issues with a very rushed finale with inconsistencies and open ends and rumors that it was supposed to be 2-cour, but I have no doubt that it was brought back to life only because Madoka proved that their approach could be profitable.
Because it's such a ginormous drag. You have to REALLY be on top of the franchise to be up to date, if it isn0t one of your favorite ones, you're guaranteed to miss one some piece here or there. It forces the audience to dive into media and formats that they're not familiar with and might even not like. They provide no narrative benefit, only more economic feasibility. And more importantly for westerners, almost none of that stuff gets officialy translated, so you're left at the merci of fans finally finishing their translations and even then you might bounce into issues with the translation being iffy or shoddy (plus some extra learning that is usually required for launching VN at all). It's such a bother and it's so easy to lose track of everything when the franchise isn't at the top of your mind that I now cringe every time a new project claims to pursue becoming a multimedia franchise. I will try the anime but I won't commit to the rest of the stuff unless I end up really loving it... as it happened with YuuYuuYuu (as an aside, I went into YuYuYu without ANY information other than one or two PV, so to me it was just this SoL with a wheelchair-bound girl in it. Oh boy was I surprised once the forestize alarm started ringing in episode 1) |
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Moroboshi-san
 Posts: 174 |
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What has been said already, comparing Madoka and Yuna is very shallow attempt of analysis. They are completely differently themed and meant for completely different audience.
Theme in Madoka is to celebrate useless whiners, if you whine enough you can become Jesus, we are told. It is Evangelion in different setting, but whereas Evangelion reeked with authenticity due to fact it was based Anno own mental sickness, Madoka reeks only laughable pretentiousness which is hallmark of all Urobuchi so-called "writing". Yuna on the other hand tells us the story of heroes facing hopeless battle and tells us that we should go on even though odds are slim, in almost complete opposition of Madoka. There are lots of earlier anime with similar theme, maybe the best suited for predecessor would be Saikano with the similar girl-fighter character. |
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FLAZE35
Posts: 85 |
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1) The ending was foreshadowed briefly by a quote in episode 7 (I think it was 7). It is noted that offerings given aren't always permanent.
2) The ending is more thoroughly explained in supplementary material. While the presentation of the ending might be poor, the explanation is available to you if you want one, so calling it a deus ex machina ending is both ironic (because it literally involves gods) and false. 3) Remarks such as "they're milking the franchise" are rubbish because the series was marketed as multi-media from the start. The prequel LN Washio Sumi wa Yuusha de aru was released simultaneously with the anime. 4) I won't and can't say Madoka was a bad work, but I do not see it as anything close to a "masterpiece" either. It has its own set of flaws. I'm not providing examples because I'd really prefer not to get into a Madoka discussion. 5) The first half is controversial because some people view it as stalling and others view it as getting to know the characters. It really depends on the person. Viewers who enjoy SoL tend to get attached to characters, so people who enjoyed the SoL in YuYuYu probably liked the first half, and that deepened the impact of the second half. On the other hand, people who like a paced, non-episodic plot might be disappointed by it. Now, to be fair: 6) As I said earlier, the ending was not presented as well as it should have been and I think the ending could have benefited from having one more episode. 7) I don't think it is known whether a sequel was planned at the time episode 12 of season 1 aired. The people in charge of the show did decide that they wanted a happy ending no matter what, when planning the story. 8) YuYuYu is not a masterpiece. Honestly, masterpiece has largely lost its meaning anyway in the anime community. |
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GoldenPincers
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I agree with those. I may love YYY, and I believe the ending makes perfect sense within the context of the show, but I agree it could have been presented better. However, like some have said, there were hints that S1 was NOT the true end, even without knowing that the Washio Sumi prequel LN was being simultaneously published. There is of course the foreshadowing of episode 7, but, more importantly, the final thing we see in episode 12 of S1: Yuki Yuna's Chapter. The world Chapter alone should have made people realize that S1 isn't/wouldn't be the end of the franchise, that more would come. In any given story, (be it a book, a game, a TV series, etc.) there are always more than just 1 chapter. So S1 of YYY was just 1 of the many chapters that would come to the series.
I mean, if your vision is akin to "the ending is paramount", then I guess nothing I say will change your opinion. Though I will say the sequel part of S2 isn't as much "correct what went wrong" and closer to "expand on an ending that showed signs of a follow-up, simultaneously explaining said ending".
It's funny because S2 is basically taking a quite different step thus far. The girls' actions (Mimori turning traitor, and Yuuna overexerting herself) have consequences that even love/friendship/heroism won't solve everything. And from my perspective, YYY's ending wasn't "Love conquers all", but closer to "Pushing forward against any obstacle and never giving up will make you surmount problems". YYY was always as much about heroism as about love. Finalll, don't forget the Club's 5th Tenet "You're likely to succeed if you try". Yuuna tried hard, pushed forward and freed herself from her coma (which wasn't that easy, as revealed in S2). |
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Alexandre Martins
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Totally agree with you. The same happens with Haibane Renmei: it requires a good understanding of many things in Buddhism and Shintoism so its symbology can be better understood. The idea that the amatsukami descended into the world to pacify and purify it ties in perfectly with their decision to eliminate the humanity. That, together with the idea of the Divine Tree (Shinju) tying up with the sacred or world tree in many mythologies, demonstrates the show's far from simplistic background.
Finally, many people complain the ending of the first season was just a horrible cop out. However, if you're familiar with the rest of the material, it certainly is not so, especially because that was not the final season. The problem is that people adhere too much to the notion that an anime is either an original work or the adaptation of a manga or novel. YuYuYu is neither, as it's part of a larger franchise, as you mentioned. These people believe the first season should have had a proper and fitting ending, just like many people say you shouldn't have to read the book to understanding a movie adapted from it. And that's all well and good, I agree with that. But when the authors plan their story so that you read the LNs, play the VNs, read the mangas and watch the animes (regardless of the order) and the complete story is scattered along these different media, viewers have no right to complain if they only consume a fraction of the material. I have two friends who don't even try to look for supplemental information outside Wikipedia, and are only interested in watching the anime, so they miss out a lot in great franchises like YuYuYu. |
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Yuvelir
Posts: 1625 |
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By the time the S1 finale happened there was no extra material to look up for more context though. There was WaSuYu but that had no relation whatsoever to what transpired in the last episode.
It was what it was and there were no external factors to save or doom it: a fitting end in tune with what the series was going for but executed quite poorly. There's just no reverse to it. No information added in a sequel, no random side-VN, no NoWaYu is going to make that execution better. Heck, if anything WaSuYu's presence justifies beating up that ending: any vital information that WaSuYu could add to YuYuYu was already explained within YuYuYu (what happened to Tougo, why the system is how it is, how it was in the past...) so there's no reason why its finale should be allowed to have any critical piece of information hidden away in a different piece of media that tells a different story. Not like it did have such a piece elsewhere, as far as I know (I haven't started with NoWaYu yet), it just didn't communicate its message, intentions and context well enough. |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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"You need in-depth knowledge of a particular field to understand why this is good" is not something I consider a valid excuse for storytelling issues. That's just snobbishness, either on the part of the fan, the show (this is a magical girl anime, not a freakin' James Joyce novel), or both. Knowledge can enhance a story, but it cannot transform a story from bad to good.
"You need to read this and play that and do all these other things to understand it" is just as much of a cop-out. The fact that they supposedly explained away the narrative issues in some hard-to-acquire side material doesn't change the fact that essential details were left out of the anime for no good reason. Multimedia franchises that pull this kind of trick are a moneymaking scheme, not some new transcendent form of storytelling. Maybe I'm just jaded, but I've always found anime to be remarkably consistent. People always say "you have to watch X episodes before it gets good," but other than rare cases of writing-quality derailments (Aldnoah Zero...) it's usually clear what the good and bad things about an anime are within the first episode or two. YuYuYu's ending didn't ruin it for me, because the story had never been particularly grounded or connected to the characters in any meaningful way. I actually really liked the show, but the diabolically bleak and cruel universe/narrative, too obviously designed to torture the characters for the crime of wanting to be heroes, isn't something I can just handwave away. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5936 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Of course, they prepared for a follow-up. But a show has to stand on its own. Season One finished, and their post battle setting acted liked nothing happened. Sorry, but there is no excuse for pretending nothing real bad happened in the final battle. Human beings act like human beings, unless they are psychopaths.
The only reason we would think the Love Conquers All concept, was that they showed no response to Togo Mimori's actions. Everyone acted like it was just another day. |
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Artesox
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At the rate of things, soon enough people will be angry that trailers have plot holes and refuse to watch the full series because of it.
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Yuvelir
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That leap of logic is larger than those plotholes could ever be.
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Polycell
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1796 Location: South America |
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Indeed. It's like asserting that a book written in Chinese must be bad because you cannot understand it without learning Chinese. Anime/manga is actually a type of Japanese visual language and even translated hence requires familiarity with it's specific cultural elements to be fully understood.
I though it was pretty obvious that Madoka's main message is that while the real world might be unforgiving and harsh, which is very different from the world as we perceive it when we are children, it is still worth it to fight for your dreams and to live in it. It is a positive message relayed through the cruel treatment of Sayaka by this incredible evil mahou shoujo/witch system, the incredible effort Homura put into her attemp to save Madoka and the final action of Madoka that broke off the evil system through the sacrifice of her humanity. It shows that the world is cruel and harsh but that a good ending is possible but that it often requires great effort and sacrifice. Evangelion is very different. It is a show that is aimed at a different audience: EVA was aimed at teenagers who have problems socializing while Madoka was aimed at young adults who are discovering how harsh adult life is. Madoka's first episodes represents the bubble of childhood while Mami's death and Sayaka's cruel experience represents the discovery of the world's harshness as we come into contact with the real world after finishing high school/college and Homura and Madoka's ark represents the redemption of this cruel and harsh real world through effort, sacrifice and persistence. Hence, it represents final success in going through adult life. Madoka was a show burning with a strong passion for the value of doing what is right despite everything and Homura's story demonstrated enormous and powerful feeling of resolve, which is ultimately required for success in the reak world. |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5150 |
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I have been meaning to comment on this thread for quite a while now, but for a couple of reasons I have been unable to do so until now.....
Some comments about Madoka Magica in particular that I would like to respond to:
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Polycell
Posts: 4623 |
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Yuvelir
Posts: 1625 |
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IIRC looking at the calendar Homura rewinded to several days before going back to school. In later timelines she used that time to prevent contact between Madoka and QB. In one of the drama CDs that came with the BDs, it's stated that Madoka's wish was to save a cat some days ago so Homura could just go and save that cat herself. Sure, it's outside information but it adds some unneeded but cool context. Last edited by Yuvelir on Sun Jan 07, 2018 6:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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